UK to ease travel rules for fully-vaccinated Indians from Monday

New Delhi: In what comes as a major relief for Indian travellers, the UK on Thursday announced that it will scrap tough COVID-19 quarantine travel rules for 47 destinations, including India, from Monday and said it would recognise the vaccine status of arrivals from more countries in the latest easing of restrictions.

Ending a row over what was perceived as the unfair imposition of Covid-19 quarantine rules by the UK, British High Commissioner to India Alex Ellis on Thursday tweeted that fully vaccinated Indian travellers with Covishield or another UK-approved vaccine visiting Britain from October 11 won't have to be quarantined.

On October 1, India had imposed mandatory 10-day quarantine for British citizens irrespective of vaccination status in response to the UK quarantine rules for Indians and citizens of several nations, including those vaccinated with UK-approved Covishield.

Described as discriminatory and even "colonialist", the UK government had faced intense backlash over its refusal to recognise visitors as vaccinated unless they received their shots in a handful of select countries.

"I'm also making changes so travellers visiting England have fewer entry requirements, by recognising those with fully-vax status from 37 new countries and territories including India, Turkey and Ghana, treating them the same as the UK fully vax passengers," Britain's Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps tweeted.

"The decision was taken after close technical cooperation between our ministries taking public health factors into account," a British High Commission spokesperson said in a statement today.

The spokesperson said the UK keeps efficacy data and information on vaccine rollout internationally under review and has kept visa rules under constant review throughout the pandemic to keep borders open whilst gradually and safely restarting travel.

If a person isn't fully vaccinated with one of the four UK-recognised vaccines - Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna and Janssen - or any formulation of these vaccines, including Covishield, the person must take a pre-departure test and must take a COVID-19 test on or before day 2 and on or after day 8, and self-isolate for 10 days.

British officials had told NDTV that the issue was not the vaccine itself but the issues with India's "vaccination certification" process and the two sides announced "progress" in recognising each other's certificates after high-level talks.